Flag Cake - Letter "F"

Ingredients:
1 box of festive patriotic funfetti cake mix
1 container of white fluffy icing
1 small container of strawberries (sliced up for the stripes)
2 heaping handfuls of blueberries (for the 50 stars)

Directions:
Bake the cake mix as directed in a rectangle cake pan. Let cool completely. Either turn upside down on a cake plate or leave in pan. Add the icing. Lastly add the fruit. Perfect for July 4th! Enjoy!

"Ta-da!"

Ice Cream - Letter "I"

Here are two delicious ice cream recipes that we have used lately. Sorry, but I will not be putting measurements beside the ingredients because honestly I did not do measuring. I have the Sunbeam Electric Half Pint Gel Canister Ice Cream Maker. It is just so easy to use and the kids love it! I just found myself adding the ingredients to the maker without measuring them.

Strawberry Ice Cream

Ingredients:
Sugar
Milk
Heavy Whipping Cream
Strawberries

Coffee Amaretto Ice Cream

Ingredients:
Amaretto liquid Coffee Creamer
Instant Coffee (I prefer Decaf)
Heavy Whipping Cream
Milk
Sugar
Vanilla extract

Dirt Cake - Letter "D"

by: Sheila Boyd

Ingredients:
1 c. confectioners' sugar
1/4 c. butter or margarine
1 - 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese
1 - 8 oz. Cool Whip
2 pkgs. French Vanilla pudding (instant)
3 1/3 c. milk
Lg. bag Oreo cookies, crushed
1 pkg. gummy worms

Directions:
In one bowl combine sugar, butter, and cream cheese. Blend well. In another bowl, mix Cool Whip, contents of the two pudding packets, and milk. Then combine both mixtures. In a medium plastic flower pot, layer cookies and mix. Make sure to put cookies on bottom and top. May decorate with artificial flower and use a garden spade to serve with.

mixing sugar, butter, and cream cheese

breaking up the Oreos

Teepees - Letter "T"

Ingredients:
1 bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 box of sugar cones
sprinkles
1 box of cake mix - I like to use Funfetti.
pretzel sticks

Directions:
Using a muffin tin, fill the sugar cones with the cake mix. I stood mine up in cupcake holders so any batter that ran out wouldn't make a mess. Once the cake inside the cones has finished cooking, take it out of the oven and set it aside. Melt the chocolate in the microwave. Cut a small hole in the tops of the cones. Then dip the bottom and top of the cones in the chocolate. Add sprinkles to the bottom of the cones. Then put pretzel sticks at the top. Very cute and very yummy!

Here are some books I used with Olivia to teach her more about teepees and Indians. The books are long so we didn't read all of them, but the pictures are helpful.
If You Lived with the Sioux Indians by: Ann McGovern
Tipi: Home of the Nomadic Buffalo Hunters by: Paul Goble
Dancing Teepees by: Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve

Clown Cupcakes - Letter "C"

Ingredients:
1 regular size box of cake mix - I use Pillsbury Funfetti.
1 container of icing - again I use Funfetti
1 box of sugar ice cream cones
assorted candies: m&m's, gum drops, and whatever you prefer
mini Nilla Wafers
1 tube of decorative gel icing

Directions:
Bake your cupcakes and allow to cool completely. Frost the cupcake and then decorate! Have fun!
sugar ice cream cones - hat
mini Nilla Wafers - ears
m&m's - eyes
red gum drops - nose
gel icing - mouth & top of hat

Eggs in a Nest - Letter "E"

This was such a fun recipe to make with Olivia! We had a great time! You can choose to make just chocolate, just butterscotch, or both. We chose to make both! The recipe yields 12 large nests of each kind.

Ingredients:
1- 12 oz. bag semi-sweet chocolate chips
1- 11 oz. bag butterscotch chips
1-  12 oz. bag of La Choy Chow Mein noodles
1- small bag of Brach's jelly beans
wax paper

Directions:
In a sauce pan (or in the microwave), melt the chocolate chips on low heat until creamy. Then add half the bag of noodles and stir thoroughly. While still hot, place spoonfuls of the mixture onto the wax paper. Next put jelly beans in the center. Repeat this with the butterscotch chips. They should be hard within 30 minutes. Very easy!! And very tasty!!

Look at that sweet hand!

This one cracked me up because she put LOTS of jelly beans on it!

I really expected the chocolate ones to be my favorite but I actually liked the butterscotch ones better!

Apple Volcanoes - Letter "V"

We made Apple Volcanoes for Letter "V"!
Apple Volcanoes
4 small apples
3 dried apricots, chopped
1/2 cup raisins
1/3 cup rolled oats
1 TBSP honey
2 TBSP butter
4 marshmallows
Mix raisins, apricots, oats and honey in a small bowl. If apples don’t sit flat, slice off a little on the bottom. Using a fork make fork pricks on the outside of the apple. Put the apples in a baking dish. Core apples with corer or knife, make sure there is a hole big enough to fill. Using fingers stuff oat mixture in the apples. Top with a pat of butter and bake at 350 for 25 minutes or until apples are fork tender. Take the apples out and place one marshmallow on top and return to oven until they begin "erupting"!:)

I had some left-over oatmeal mixture so I used 6 apples instead of 4.